As an entrepreneurial spirit, you may have many business ideas swirling through your head. Creativity is the essence of successful entrepreneurial businesses but only if your niche market passes these three criteria:

• Your market has to WANT what you offer.

• Your market has to KNOW that they want what you offer.

• Your market has to be willing to PAY for what you offer.

To give you an example of a creative business idea that did not pass this test- a coach who specialized in stress-reduction created a wonderful program that showed teachers how to reduce their stress.

But the business idea did not work. Why? The teachers wanted what she offered (#1) and knew they wanted it (#2), but they didn’t have the disposable income to invest in her service (#3). However, this coach found great success when she changed her niche from teachers to businesses.

You can test out your ideas with your market by surveying them. Make sure your niche market passes all three criteria. If it doesn’t, change your niche market OR change what you offer to better serve what they want.

This single tip can save you years of wasted energy!

Time is money for any business, but especially for the small business. Anyone who is self-employed knows that they work harder than at the typical job. Finding ways to work smarter instead of harder will save valuable time and energy. Spotlight your niche to market smarter.

One of the battles of marketing is finding the best potential customers and the best places to display your message. By correctly defining your niche a lot of the guesswork is taken out of marketing. A niche allows for focus. Knowing your niche lets you market to potential clients who are interested in your service or product rather than marketing to everyone who may not be interested.

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As an entrepreneurial spirit, you may have many business ideas swirling through your head. Creativity is the essence of successful entrepreneurial businesses but only if your niche market passes these three criteria:

• Your market has to WANT what you offer.

• Your market has to KNOW that they want what you offer.

• Your market has to be willing to PAY YOU WELL for what you offer.

You can test out your ideas with your market by surveying them. Make sure your niche market passes all three criteria. If it doesn’t, change your niche market OR change what you offer to better serve what they want.

This single tip can save you years of wasted energy!

What the heck do I mean by “repurpose?”  Well it’s when you do one thing and then spin that one thing into many.  Let’s take a look at how this might work.

1.  Write a top ten tip sheet.  My first one was called “Top Ten Ways to Live Authentically.”  I wrote it 10 years ago and put it online and I still get feedback from it!

2.  Flesh out each of your top ten tips into a few paragraphs and now you have an article.  Write a 400-600 word article expanding on your top ten tips.  You put a “call to action” resource box at the end of the article.  A resource box is the jargon term that online article databases use…kind of like a byline, only it’s much more.

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You typically hear in many marketing circles that the first thing you need to do is identify your niche. This terminology of a ‘niche’ doesn’t work for me because it feels very much like, “Find a group of people to sell to.” I’ve found a better way to identify these people is to ask, “Who needs me most?”

When you look at who needs you most and you can recognize what your ideal client is, it’s very important for you to be aware that you shouldn’t work with everyone.

I was once at a networking group and someone asked this gentleman, “So who’s an ideal client for you?” and he answered, “Anyone breathing.”

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Read Part One of How to Do Transformational Selling

Remember our couple who wanted the new $15,000 patio and outdoor entertainment area?  (See How To Do Transformational Selling, Part One).  I promised I would walk you through the steps of successful transformational selling and how it ties in to good customer relationships and collaborative marketing.  Here’s what can happen when you are set up to sell this way.

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Read Part Two of How to Do Transformational Selling

If you still believe that customers do deals with you because you are logically their best option, you are stuck in an old and inaccurate marketing model.  The idea that rational thought is the prime motivator of consumer behavior was proven wrong in the mid 1990’s.  People buy on emotion, not logic.  This is actually a great advantage to small businesses.  Why?  For the most part, smaller businesses can easily do a much better job of knowing their customers and the emotional triggers their customers have at any given time.  And once those emotions are known, smaller businesses can usually be more nimble and flexible in designing offerings to meet their customer needs.

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I spent last week in Boston – “enjoying” the winter weather and visiting with two of my platinum clients – creative business owners . It’s tough for me as I only have “southern winter” clothes. Not quite waterproof, slip-proof and protective enough…but it worked out.

Here is a photo of me in the snow at our retreat center. I like to find beautiful and inspiring spaces. This time the retreat was at a cute farmhouse. (mental note: add into my vision story that all retreats are in WARM, beautiful and inspiring spaces)

I get asked a lot about what goes on during these day long Creative Business Retreats. What do you do all day?

These Creative Business Retreat Days are part of a year long Magic & Miracles Platinum Program. It’s for business owners who are ready to go beyond their current level in a much bigger way.As part of the program you get a day devoted to your business. It’s tailor made to your needs and where you are in your business. We usually include:

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Andy Wibbels explores this concept and more in his blog post, Everything Is A Lifestyle. If you’ve been struggling to define your niche or figure out how to market to it, this article may be a catalyst to looking at your niche in a whole different way!

If you’re reading this ezine, it’s likely that you’ve participated in a teleseminar, whether it be mine or one of my colleagues. You’ve probably been on some that have been very good, where you got tons of really valuable information. And you may have found yourself on a few that were nothing but pitch-fests for the host’s lastest product.

But I want to share something with you. Hosting content-rich teleseminars for my target market is some of the quickest and easiest mo^ney I’ve generated in my business.

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